When you live on land thats been abused and neglected, you get to know the scavengers first. Ants, yellow jackets, black widows, gophers and coyotes were the residents when we first arrived.

Still high from watching Dan Barber’s Ted talk: foie gras parable, I’d come up with a phrase to illuminate a theme in his talk on a new way to approach raising food: self-reinforcing magical-delight synergistic loop.

I get to live in green. When I drive home, I pass farms and oak groves. I wake up to a forest floating on an emerald green understory that will become ignited at sunset when the orange tipped leaves of the native Pajaro manzanita turn into a million dancing candles.

The coyotes were celebrating their survival, calling out to all members of their pack that they’d discovered water, that they might all live one more season.

I used to think sustainability was all about what the land could support season after season without undue toxic amendment by us. As the space between the land and me diminishes, I’m learning that sustainability doesn’t mean a lot without including what I can sustain.

Lunacy overcame me this morning at about 1am. Laying in bed I was intensely aware of pockets of decay in my own spirit, and the palpable full moon energy showering me with its blessings. This is the second full moon in as many months to offer me energy to help in late night transformative work.

Amazing foods have been hiding behind our industrial farming complex. Not just veggies like beets that have been packaged so far beyond their original form as to be unrecognizable as food.

The bien of the land requires the same attention and consideration. When it makes its presence known it is time to really show up and pay attention. As the years roll by I expect to be absorbed more and more into that presence.

It was one of those rare conversations our relationship gives us, like a secret suprise banquet, every couple of years. We both awoke well after midnight and began to talk about what it really means to slow down. Our son slept heavily between us, never waking.